[12] "Picti Saxonesque et Scotti et Attacotti Britannos aerumnis vexavere continuis." These Attacotti appear to have been an Irish tribe. There is a great deal of controversy as to who they were. St. Jerome twice mentions them in connection with the Scots (_i.e._, the Irish): _Scotorum et Atticotorum ritu_, they have their wives and children in common, as Plato recommends in his Republic! (Migne's edition, Book I., p. 735.) He says that he himself saw some of them when he was young, "_Ipse adolescens in Gallia viderim Attacottos, Scotorum_ (one would expect _Attacotorum_) _natio uxores proprias non habet._" The name strongly resembles Cæsar's Aduatuci and Diodorus's Ατουατικοὶ and certainly appears to be same as the Gaelic Aitheach-Tuatha, so well known in Irish history, a name which O'Curry translates by "rent-paying tribes," probably of non-Milesian origin. These rose in the first century against their Milesian masters and massacred them. If as Thierry thinks the east and centre of Gaul were Gaelic speaking, they too may have had their Aitheach-Tuatha, which may have been a general name for certain non-Celtic tribes reduced by the Celts. According to the Itinerarium of Ricardus Corinensis quoted by Diefenbach, Book III., there were Attacotti along the banks of the Clyde: "_Clottæ ripas accolebant Attacotti, gens toti aliquando Britanniæ formidanda._" [13] "Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne" ("glacialis," of course, only when looked at from a southern point of view. Strabo, as we have seen, said the island was scarcely habitable from cold). "--Totam quum Scotus Iernen Movit et infesto spumavit remige Tethys." It is probably mere hyperbole of Claudian to say that the Roman chased the Irish out to sea, "--nec falso nomine Pictos Edomuit, Scotumque vago mucrone secutus Fregit Hyperboreas velis audacibus undas." [14] These appear in Britain in the middle of the fifth century, in 449 according to the Saxon Chronicle, which is probably _substantially_ correct. [15] Pronounced "Teear-nach." CHAPTER III EARLY HISTORY DRAWN FROM NATIVE SOURCES The allusions to Ireland and the Irish from the third century before to the fourth century after Christ, are, as we have seen, both few and scanty, and throw little or no light upon the internal affairs or history of the island; for these we must go to native sources.